The Meservey Photographs Collection is comprised of photographs and photograph negatives housed in three Hollinger document boxes. The items date from 1948 to 1951, and are arranged to correspond with the chapters of the publication The Architectural Heritage of Newport, Rhode Island, published by Harvard University Press in 1952.
This collection has been fully digitized and is available for viewing online at
All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the PSNC Archives and Special Collections are requested to contact the archivist, prior to reproducting, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although the Preservation Society has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim copyright ownership. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the copyright and to obtain any necessary permission from them.
The collection is open to the public, and there are no restrictions on access. However, the collection can only be seen by scheduled appointment.
Description or title of item, PSNCA.H.025: Meservey Photographs Collection, Box #, Folder #, Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, RI.
This collection is arranged in folders in three Hollinger document boxes. The collection is a single series, arranged to correspond with the chapters of Architectural Heritage of Newport.
Under the guidance of its founder, Katherine U. Warren, the Preservation Society of Newport County's Survey Committee engaged two architectural historians in 1947 to undertake an ambitious survey project of Newport architecture. These architectural historians, sponsored by Mrs. Michael M. Van Beuren (nee Mary Archbold), were Antoinette F. Downing, shortly to become the leader of historic preservation in Providence, RI and Vincent J. Scully, Jr., a young Yale professor soon to become a nationally prominent architectural historian.
Newport was one of the greatest seaports of the colonial era, and the city evolved into a thriving resort town by the 19th century. The results of the survey were compiled for the book The Architectural Heritage of Newport, Rhode Island to showcase historically significant examples of American architecture in Newport, including eighteenth-century colonial Newport, the early Republican period, and nineteenth-century resort architecture. The publication provides a comprehensive look at what remained of Newport's early architecture by the 1950s. The publishing of the survey, by the Harvard University Press in 1952, was supported by Mrs. Van Beuren and foundation grants.
Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, photographer Robert Meservey was the son of Arthur Bond Meservey, chair of the physics department at Dartmouth College. Robert attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1939 and then serving in the U.S. Army. Meservey began working as an independent photographer after World War II. Among his photographs were depictions of Robert Frost, John F. Kennedy, and Jacqueline Bouvier, as well as images of the Dartmouth campus, and eventually his survey of Newport architecture for Downing and Scully's publication.
Robert Meservey’s photography career preceded many accomplishments as a physicist. During and after the Korean War, Meservey worked on developing night vision technology and completed graduate work in physics and mathematics at George Washington University. He later completed a Ph.D in physics at Yale University in 1961. From the early 1960s, Meservey worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory. The American Physical Society elected him as a fellow, and he was a joint recipient of the 2009 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize for work in magnetoelectronics.
With his wife Evelyn Bradford Miller, Robert Meservey had two daughters.
This collection has been fully digitized and is available for viewing online at